


Slice-of-Life Sunday

by Snowy_the_Sane_Fangirl



Series: DaveJade Week [1]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, DaveJade Week, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I think it's a happy ending, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4084756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowy_the_Sane_Fangirl/pseuds/Snowy_the_Sane_Fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of ficlets about the day-to-day life of Dave Strider and Jade Harley in a domestic post-Game setting. Written for DaveJade Week. Not much plot, though the individual stories exist in the same universe. They're presented in chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hot Cinnamon Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> Each of these ficlets was based off of a prompt from [meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/). These prompts were created with a first meeting scenario in mind, but I've modified them to suit my needs. The inspiring prompt is still linked at the beginning of each ficlet, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter was loosely inspired by [The Meet Cute #191](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/post/119160023418/191-the-meet-cute). I don't own any of the tea companies mentioned here. Nor have I even tasted some of them, so don't take my word on their quality.

Jade turned the tea tin over in her hands, considering the reddish-brown color of it and the name announced by the shiny letters on the front; hot cinnamon sunset. Fitting, since the late afternoon sunlight was streaming through the windows of the tea shop and brightly reflecting off the letters. The tea’s name sounded magnificent and kind of ostentatious, if she was being honest with herself. But she certainly wasn’t going to judge a tea flavor on its name. In any event, the color of the tin was pleasant enough.

A hand tapped insistently on her shoulder. “Made up your mind yet, Harley?”

“Nope,” she replied with a laugh. “What do you think?” She held up the tin so that Dave could see it more easily.

He stuck out his tongue, just the slightest bit. “It looks like someone from before the French Revolution designed this tin. Does it really need to be that shiny? Fuck no, but making it that shiny makes all the difference because the king has shiny shit. The difference is that the king’s shit is actually made of gold or whatever, but it doesn’t matter to the masses, does it?”

“Dave,” Jade cut him off. “What does this have to do with the French Revolution?”

“Slow down, I was getting to that.”

Jade stifled a giggle, tucking a strand of hair back into the scarf she had wrapped around her hair to conceal her dog ears, memoirs leftover from the Game.. “I just want to know whether or not you think we should buy it! You can tell me all about the French Revolution after you tell me that.”

“How the fuck should I know? What does it taste like?”

She shook her head. “How the fuck should I know, Dave? What am I supposed to do, lick the tin?” She smacked his arm playfully.

Of course Dave made a big deal out of it, clutching at his limb. “Shit, Harley, what was that for?”

“Being a big dork.” Jade continued to examine the tin. “Maybe we can ask the clerk if we can smell it?” she said.

“I’m dying over here and you don’t even care.”

Jade resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his antics and smiled. She knew he was fine; if he was really hurt he wouldn’t be making such a big deal out of it, and anyway, she knew how hard she’d hit him. “Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling it away from his other arm. “I’m going to ask the clerk if they have a sample.”

Dave let go of his limb and followed her, rolling his own eyes behind the protection of his shades. Jade circled around a couple of stands full of some Indian brand he’d never heard of and Celestial Seasonings, respectively, until they reached the counter in the tea shop. Smiling brightly, she walked towards the clerk, holding up the hot cinnamon sunset tea.

“Hi!” she says. “I was wondering if you have a sample of this we can smell to get an idea of what it tastes like?”

The clerk smiled. “We do!” he said. He went behind the counter and reached up to a high shelf, pulling a plastic baggie with a tea bag in it down. He examined it for a moment before shaking his head. “This is chai,” he mumbled.

Dave saw Jade’s headscarf move ever so slightly and could easily imagine her ears perking up under it. “Well as long as you have that out, we’ll give it a sniff too!” she said quickly.

The clerk glanced back at her, pausing in the act of replacing the package with his arm above his head. He shrugged. “All right,” he said, and he held out the baggie to Jade, who gleefully put the tin she was holding down on the counter and grabbed it.

It only took a moment for her to open the bag and take a sniff of the tea inside. “It smells good,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. She took another deep inhale and her forehead wrinkled a little as she considered the scent.

Not that Dave was paying that much attention to her or anything. He actually wasn’t, though. “Hey, what’s that?” he asked, pointing to a box side taped to the shelf of samples. “Is that apple flavored tea? Sweet. I gotta try that shit.”

The clerk abandoned his search along the shelf he’d gotten the chai from to see what Dave was pointing at. He went and grabbed it, handing it to his customer. “There you go,” he said. “That brand’s not really all that good, though, if you ask me. The Twinings brand blueberry and apple is better, if you don’t mind a little flavor mixing.”

Dave nodded as he opened the bag and smelled the tea. It didn’t smell all that much like apples, to be honest, unless they were really damn unripe apples. He put the bag back on the counter, concealing slight disappointment beneath a straight face. “Sure, I’ll try the Twinings one,” he said. He glanced at the front of the shop, checking to see if anyone he knew was outside. He already knew what he’d do if he encountered John or Rose or anyone else under these circumstances; play it off as irony. Neither of the two people he’d just thought of would believe it for a moment, but if he played his cards right they just might think he’d originally gone into the tea shop because he really liked tea, rather than because Jade had asked him to with eyes the size of bowling balls. But more attractive than bowling balls. Eyes the size of really attractive bowling balls without holes. Holes in Jade’s eyes would be bad.

While he was thinking, the clerk got out a different apple flavored tea and handed it to him. Upon smelling this tea, he came to a conclusion that he had absolutely no problem voicing. “How much sugar did they even add to this shit? It’s like a volcano erupted on the tea factory but instead of belching lava it covered everything in sugar and then the plant owners decided, fuck it, we can’t afford to lose all these sales, maybe nobody will notice this shit is as sweet as a field of cane. With extra sugar.”

The clerk was searching for the hot cinnamon sunset sample again, but Jade could see a confused and slightly hurt expression on his face, so she cut Dave off before he could get any ruder about it, even though she was pretty amused by his rant herself. “Cane sugar isn’t really all that sweet,” she said, shrugging. “At least I’ve heard it’s not. I’ve never had any. Miraculously, Dave took the hint, or at any rate, decided to shut up for a minute. Jade grabbed the first apple tea sample and smelled it for herself, before snatching the other one away from Dave and considering both of them. “It is awfully sweet,” she conceded. “But this other one really does smell like apples. It’s just not sweet enough. What if you combined them?”

Dave grabbed them both back and smelled them both together. “Huh. That might work,” he mumbled.

Jade turned back to the clerk, who was still looking for the sample she’d originally asked for. “Look, if you can’t find it that’s fine,” she told him. “I’ll just get the chai. Can you tell me where I can grab a box?”

Apparently relieved, the clerk came away from the shelf and pointed to the far wall. “Over there, under the green sign,” he said.

“Thanks,” Jade told him. “I’ll take this back while I’m at it.” She picked up the hot cinnamon sunset tin.

“Nah, that goes way in the back,” Dave said. “I’ll get it.”

Jade smiled at him brilliantly as he took the tin from her hand. “Thanks, Dave,” she said. She took off for the chai tea she’d chosen and Dave headed back to where they’d originally gotten the hot cinnamon sunset tea.

He put it back on the shelf and reached the counter just in time to see Jade finishing up her transaction. “Hey, I decided I want to get these apple teas and try mixing them like you said,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. “I’ll meet you outside in a minute.” He turned to the clerk as Jade acknowledged him and left the store. “Where are these?” he asked.

“The first one’s right next to the chai. The other’s on that rack by the door.” The clerk seemed to be slightly annoyed by him, and Dave expected it was probably his metaphoric rant about sugar volcanoes and tea factories. His rants tended to have a negative effect on most people, he’d discovered. Not that he cared much.

Dave nodded and went to get both boxes, then doubled back and picked up the tin of hot cinnamon sunset again. Jade wanted to try it. Jade was going to try it. When he arrived back at the counter, the clerk eyed the tin knowingly. Dave would have glared at him if he didn’t know glares tended to be pretty ineffective from behind his all-concealing shades. With a roll of his eyes the clerk rang it all up. “That’ll be thirty-four eighty, lover-boy.”

* * *

It was totally worth it that evening when he stopped Jade at the door of her apartment and told her she’d forgotten something, only to whip the tin of tea out of his sylladex and push it into her hands before giving her a knowing smirk and a little mock salute and then taking off because holy shit he’d just randomly given Jade Harley a gift. The little flush of her cheeks and the way she opened her mouth in a little O just before he shut the door made it all worth it. Even if Jake had walked into view before the door was completely closed and maybe definitely knew exactly where that tin of tea had come from, and if when he finally got back to the car and slipped into the passenger seat next to Rose, he was practically radiating such a strong air of exuberant jitteriness that she merely rolled her eyes even more knowingly than the clerk before shifting the vehicle into drive and taking them home.

 


	2. Star Wars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired loosely by [The Meet Cute #189](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/post/118753091598/189-the-meet-cute). I don't own Star Wars.

It wasn't a cold day. On the contrary, the sun was hot and, walking down the sidewalk beneath the mostly bare branches of the trees that shaded it in months that weren't October, Jade was sweating. At that moment she really wanted to rip her headscarf off and take her hair down, but she knew better than to do that. There was no knowing what people would do if they saw her ears, far too lifelike and reactive to be fake. As she rounded the corner of the men's dormitory building of Prilly College, she ducked into the strip of shade afforded by the second-floor walkway, exhaling in relief. She ignored the many open dorm doors allowing the slight breeze into the stuffy rooms. She walked along the side of the men's building as far as she reasonably could, enjoying her time in the shade. It was only maybe a thousand yards from where she stood to the women's dormitory across the parking lot.

She was just about to make a dash for it when below her scarf her ears perked up. Which was ridiculous, she thought. She certainly wasn't hearing anything with them, nor had she ever been able to. It was a bit too much, apparently, for the Game to completely rewire her head so that her ear canals went up instead of to the side. That didn't prevent them from behaving just as if they were the ears she'd been born with, and displaying puppyish eagerness whenever she heard something she liked. And right now what she was hearing with her normal human ears was a familiar _dun-dun dundundunduuun-dun_ from one of the nearby open dorm rooms.

Figuring it definitely wouldn’t hurt her to stay out of the hot sun for just a little bit longer, she followed the sound a little further down the sidewalk, still keeping to the shade. Since all the windows and doors looked alike and the door was swung open to the inside so she couldn’t see the number, it was hard to be positively sure, but she thought it might possibly be the dorm occupied by her friend Dave Strider. She’d only been in his dorm a few times, but it certainly looked like his. The only way to find out for sure, she guessed, was to look inside and see if he was in there with that tantalizing music.

He was, lounging on his desk chair and facing away from the door. She’d know the back of that disheveled blonde head anywhere, and the sight sent an excited little thrill through her. Dave was fun to be around! And anyway, she knew she could lose this damn headscarf around him, and that sounded very appealing at the moment, rather than waiting until she got back to her own dorm. Besides, her roommate might be there. She hadn’t quite figured out the other girl’s schedule this early in the semester. She hesitated at the door for a few seconds. She hadn’t been invited inside, but what was the point, she asked herself, of going to the same college as your best friend if you can’t crash in their dorm any time? Deciding that there was none, she stepped into the room. “Hi, Dave!” she said as she shut the door behind her. “Is your roommate around?”

He paused his movie and swiveled his chair around, already protesting against the new state of affairs concerning the door. “Fuck, Harley, how’s a guy supposed to get some damn air in here with the door closed and the air conditioner KO’d?” He shut his mouth abruptly when he saw her hands hovering above the decorative knot that held the scarf in place. “Nah, he just left for class maybe ten minutes back.”

Infinitely relieved, Jade undid the knot and pulled the scarf off her head, letting it fall to the floor. She liked it, objectively; it was two shades of green and one of blue and had gentle swirling patterns all over it. But right now she just wanted the fucking thing off her head. She undid her hair while she was at it, pulling out clips and pins until it tumbled out of the high bun it was in and dropping them on top of the fallen scarf. Heaving a sigh of relief, she massaged her scalp, running her fingers through her hair and adjusting the strands around the base of her ears. Even though she’d had her hair up almost perpetually for the past two and a half years, hiding her ears under ostentatious hair styles, hats, and scarves, it still hurt when she left it up for too long. “When will he be back?” she asked.

“Not for a couple of hours,” Dave replied. “Who said you could just barge in on my business like this? What if I’d been changing, what then?”

Jade rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Yes, with the door wide open. Then I would have closed my eyes until you were done, you goof.”

“Okay,” Dave said, his face pulling up into a little smirk. “Are you sure? Wouldn’t you like to get a peek at my sweet abs or some shit?”

“Not really,” Jade said, subdued. She’d never really seen Dave without a shirt, and, truth be told, she didn’t exactly want to. She knew for a fact that dreamselves would adopt any serious wounds from the primary body, especially if it was fatal. God tiering was kind of hit and miss when it came to scars, injuries, and body modifications, and, from what she understood, had to do with what the player wanted. There were wounds on Dave’s torso that she would rather not see, regardless of whether they were actually there or not. She didn’t want to know if they were.

Dave had no idea what was wrong with that suggestion himself, but he did know when it was time to drop it. “So what are you doing in my dorm then?” he asked. He considered adding, “If you’re not here to ogle my sweet bod,” but decided not to. That idea didn’t really seem to appeal to Jade. He was a little bit hurt, because even though he knew it was ridiculous, somewhere deep down inside he’d thought she found him as attractive as he found her.

Jade smiled again. “Aren’t you going to invite me to join you watching your movie?” she asked teasingly.

“Didn’t know I needed to,” Dave replied. “Actually, I expected you to just plop the fuck down on my lap like you live here and we’re a fuckin’ married couple. Good thing you didn’t. This chair is a steaming pile of shit.”

He turned back around and Jade wondered if he was planning on ignoring her for the barest moment, before she realized he was unplugging his laptop computer and picking it up off the desk. He stood up, kicking his chair back, and moved walked over to his bed. “There’s more room here anyway,” he said.

Jade smiled as she flopped down onto the bed next to him, adjusting the blankets and pushing a pillow out of her way onto the floor, then pushed herself up close to him. Purely for the sake of seeing the movie from the best angle, of course. “Which one -” she began.

“ _Empire Strikes Back_ ,” Dave said. “Unless you want to watch a different one. That’s cool with me.”

“No, no, this is good,” she said. She liked all the Star Wars movies, and quite frankly being inside and losing the scarf, not to mention hanging out with Dave, made it not really matter so much what the movie was. She gently rested her head against his shoulder - only to get her face at the right angle to see the computer screen! - and was content.


	3. Fifteen Cents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by [The Meet Cute #168](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/post/116068421849/168-the-meet-cute). I don't own Red Hots. I hate college libraries, though. College libraries are full of assholes.

Dave hated going to the library on campus, especially near the end of the semester. It was full of holier-than-thou jerks who somehow didn’t need to cram before finals because, somehow, their infinite angelic holiness was enough for them to absorb every modicum of information the teacher decided to impart and just _had_ to show off by being in the library at the end of the semester. Not studying. There they all were, lounging around and taking up all the comfortable seats so they could read _Twilight_ and fucking _Doctor Who_ novels. One of these assholes was even fast asleep on a love seat, taking up the entire thing, and hadn’t showered in weeks, by the smell of him. That alone was almost enough for Dave to turn the fuck around and do his cramming in his dorm where he wasn’t in danger of catching asshole-cooties. The only thing that kept him in the library was the fact that he needed to complete this research project to pass his required gen ed public speaking course. He’d put it off as long as he could, and as a result was stuck doing it at the most infuriating time possible. As the Knight of Time, one might think he’d have _timed_ that a little better. Ha ha fucking ha.

He finally found a mostly isolated space between a support pillar and the end of a shelf near the wall. It didn’t occur to him to disgrace his ass with one of the nasty plastic pieces of shit that sat around one of the communal tables. They were most reminiscent of sitting on a heap of his bro’s dull throwing stars, and their smell suggested that either a primary ingredient in the plastic was urine or some kind stranger had taken the time out of his life to piss on every single one of them. They were also an unpleasant color, somewhere halfway between Jane Crocker’s god tier and baby shit.

Having settled down in his little alcove, he flipped open his laptop and pulled up the assignment. Easy, the teacher called it. Easy, the other students called it. Putrid stinking shitheap waste of time, he called it. Waste of time because it was wasting the Knight of - shit fuck okay enough with the god damn Time puns already! The assignment was a list of relatively simple tasks involving various reference books. As if he didn’t know how to use and cite a fucking encyclopedia. Well, to be quite frank, he knew how to use an encyclopedia, but not cite one. He also knew that Microsoft Word had a fucking automated feature for that, fuck you very much.

Unfortunately the first reference book he needed was being used by someone else, another student from a different class who had put off his assignment until the last moment, and apparently actually had a severe reference book disability, because he sat and stared quizzically at it for at least an hour and a half while Dave was in the library alone. The second reference book needed had apparently been stolen, as it was nowhere to be found. After searching for it by himself for almost an entire hour, Dave finally asked a librarian about it. All she could give him were smiles and a note to his teacher explaining the situation. Given how long he had put this assignment off, he wasn’t sure that was going to save his grades.

Finally, after an hour and forty five minutes precisely, he had completed three of the eight tasks on the list, found the fourth to be impossible because the instructions made no fucking sense, and acquired a headache. On top of that, he still had cramming to do. His second final was tomorrow and he wasn’t confident at all on it. He’d already bombed his first like a total chump moron. He could smell the asshole who was still sleeping on the love seat like he fucking owned the place, too, and it wasn’t doing his headache any good. Deciding it was high time for a break, he stood up and stretched, glancing around. His eyes lighted on a vending machine near the door. Sweet. He had some change in his pocket, the last of the month’s spending money. He glanced around to see if anyone nearby was really obviously broadcasting a desire to steal his laptop. Not seeing anyone suspicious, he headed over to the vending machine. He was pretty sure he’d be able to see his stuff well enough the whole way over there and back, and while he didn’t have Time powers anymore, he was still fast. No one would be able to get away with any of his shit.

As he approached the machine, he saw exactly what he wanted in the form of a bright red box. Sweet. Red Hots. A dollar seventy-five, too. Not bad at all. Maybe today wasn’t going to keep being as shitty as it had done a good job of being so far. He grabbed his change and started sorting through it. He had five quarters, which left him with fifty cents to go. He set the quarters aside and started counting the dimes. There were only three. He frowned as he recounted his change. Five quarters, three dimes, and one nickel. “What the fuck,” he said out loud. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Yep, today was going to continue being just as shitty as it had been before. It was like today was a steaming pile of shit and it just kept on being a steaming pile of shit, instead of turning into a broken rock or a pointy stick or something marginally better than a steaming pile of shit. Fuck that steaming pile of shit and fuck today too. He pressed his free hand against the side of his head, pushing his hair back, and stifled a groan of frustration, instead mumbling, “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”

It crossed his mind to turn around and fling the money as far away from him as he possibly could, but before he could actually do it he felt someone grab the hand he was tensing up for a throw to make the best sports player proud. “Hey, what the fuck?” he snapped, yanking his hand away. “Oh. Hey, Jade.”

Jade was frowning at him. She obviously knew what he’d been about to do and did not approve. “Hi, Dave,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

“Shit, it’s nothing,” he said. “I’m fifteen cents short for Red-hots. I’ll fucking live.”

Jade glanced at the vending machine, and then back at Dave, the frown still creasing her brow. “What else is wrong?” she asked. Shit. Of course Jade would know more was wrong than a lack of candy, however sweet aforementioned candy may be.

“It’s nothing, Jade,” he said again. “What are you doing here, anyway? Didn’t you get the memo? This library is an asshole-only zone. Idiots are allowed in too, as long as they make sure to be really douchey about it. And by ‘it’ I mean every-fucking-thing.”

Jade shook her head. “Homework,” she said. “It’s quieter in here than it is out there. I can’t focus with people moving around and always walking past me.” She smirked just a little bit. “At least all the assholes in here don’t get up and walk around every ten seconds.

“Here,” she added, digging her hand in her own pocket. “I’ve got some loose change.”

“Fuck Jade, you don’t have to,” Dave said. “I’m fine, really.”

“No, it’s fine.” Jade flapped her hand at him, pulling several coins out of her pocket and holding them out.

“But -” Dave began.

“Dave, if you don’t take this change out of my hand I’m going to drop it on the floor,” Jade said. Her tone of voice told him she was serious.

Dave nodded and reluctantly accepted the coins. “Thanks,” he said. He turned to the vending machine to buy his candy. “You want anything? If there’s enough change for it.”

“No thanks,” she replied. “I have half a muffin over with my stuff.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I should get back to it. I just came over to say hi and see why you looked like you were about to punch the vending machine. That’s all.” She started to turn away, then paused. “Do you wanna meet up and have dinner together? If you have the _time_ , that is?”

Dave straightened up, box of Red-hots in hand. “Shit Harley, not the time puns. Not right now. I can’t deal with that.”

Jade held up her hands. “Gee, okay! I guess I’ll give you a little _space_ , then!”

Dave rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he said.

Biting her lower lip, Jade nodded and turned away.

Dave belatedly realized the context of what he’d just said. “Wait, I mean yeah to the dinner thing. The dinner thing, not the terrible pun. Seven thirty?”

She stopped and turned back, and he was infinitely relieved to see that she was smiling again. “Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll see you when the _time_ comes.”

He found he couldn’t really hold it against her, and even didn’t mind so much as he ought to. And maybe, just maybe, today wasn’t such a steaming pile of shit after at all.


	4. The Bed Testers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by [The Meet Cute #149](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/post/113551610738/149-the-meet-cute). I don't own Ikea.

Dave was definitely lying on this bed in this Ikea for ironic reasons. Definitely. These ironic reasons had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Rose fucking Lalonde had managed to coerce all eight of the sibling/parent/friends to go on a bonding trip to Ikea. She might not have succeeded if it weren’t for the fact that Jade, John, and Jane all thought it sounded fun. He was pretty sure Jade legitimately thought it sounded fun. John and Jane he was suspicious of.

He’d been suspicious of them from the moment they opened their mouths, but now that they were actually in the store he knew their reasons. The two of them had roped Jake, Jade, and Roxy into playing storewide hide and seek with them almost immediately. Not that it didn’t sound fun, but Dave certainly wasn’t going to play their stupid little game for babies who shit hard in diapers. Which was why he was currently on a bed, lying as ironically as possible on his back with his hands clasped over his stomach, watching the people walking past through his shades. Irony. He’d wanted to cut straight to the cafeteria and indulge in some of their admittedly good food, but he didn’t because while they were still in the car they’d agreed to meet up for dinner at five thirty. It was currently three fifty-eight. Hurray.

He raised an eyebrow that no one could see as Roxy stalked past, glancing around shelves like something was about to bite her head off just around every corner. “Yo, Davey,” she said. “You seen John anywhere?”

“Nope,” Dave replied. “Not a hair on his dorky-ass head. Good luck, though.”

“Thanks,” she said, and continued down the aisle, ducking down to crawl around the bed on the other side of the display Dave was on.

A few seconds later, a dark head peeked around the corner of the divider between the bed display Dave was on and the bedding section on the other side. He could tell right away from the length and color of the hair that it was Jade. She glanced around and then scampered straight over to him. He was a little bit surprised to see her climb onto the bed with him and take the empty half.

“I’m not an expert at hide and seek when it doesn’t involve one metric ton of smuppets, but I really don’t think this is a good hiding place,” he said.

“Shush,” Jade rebutted, holding her finger up against her lips. “It’s a perfect hiding place.” Then she wriggled around until she moved closer to him.

Closer. Okay. Jade Harley was edging closer to him. He could live with this. Being close to Jade was nice. _Touching_ Jade was nice. He wondered, on a scale of one to holy fuck, how closely his face matched his eyes. He also took a moment to hope that no one else would happen along to see this.

No such luck. It had only been a few minutes before Roxy once again appeared. At the sight of her, Jade practically flung herself onto Dave, nestling her head against his shoulder and throwing one arm across his chest. She smirked as she looked at the other girl. “Hi, Roxy!” she said innocently, as if she hadn’t just practically assaulted Dave.

Roxy stood still in the aisle, staring at the two of them with some combination of delight and suspicion on her face. “I found you,” she finally said. “That means you’re It.”

Jade shifted her head a little, poking out her lower lip in a pout. “Does it?” she asked. “Does it really?”

“I’m betrayed,” the Lalonde girl said. “You can’t just use your weird double reacharound knowledge like this. It isn’t fair.”

“It’s not against the rules,” Jade objected. “In fact, the rules say you have to tag me before I’m It. Are you going to come over here and tag me?”

Roxy shook her head and rolled her eyes before she turned around and marched off without another word.

“Shit, looks like I’m out of the loop,” Dave observed. “What weird double reacharound knowledge are we talking about here?”

“Nothing,” Jade said. Dave was pretty sure he knew, though. Even Captain Oblivious himself, Jake English, was aware of what he thought might possibly be a mutual crush between him and Jade. At least, there was a crush on his part. He didn’t really know about Jade. He thought there might be, but that could also just be him being self-centered, as usual. But back to the knowledge bit. Everyone knew about the crush and thought it was adorable, and Dave and Jade both knew that everyone knew. Everyone also knew that they knew that the others knew, and the two of them in turn knew about that. And what was going down now was clearly nothing except Jade using all that knowing that was going down to her advantage. Which was a tactically sound thing to do.

Unfortunately for this analyses, Roxy was long gone and Jade hadn’t moved yet. After a moment, she spoke. “This is pretty comfy. Mind if I stay here for a while?”

 _Yes. You’re making my face hot. We’re going critical here, Harley. My face is a bomb about to explode and I like my face. I have a sweet face. Plus, if my face exploded, that would damage my shades. What would I even wear my shades on anymore? See, I need my face. Please don’t explode my face._ “Nope.” He shifted one of his arms that was still on his stomach and slid it down between their bodies, where it met Jade’s hand. It only took a little invitation for her to slide her fingers between his and clasp his hand tight, and not let go.


	5. Whispers in the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by [The Meet Cute #153](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/post/114455465518/153-the-meet-cute). There are no name brands I need to disclaim in this chapter.

Jade thought riding on the subway was fun. In the middle of the day, it usually wasn’t very crowded, but there were a lot more people on it than she was used to. She’d grown up completely isolated, of course, and even after she’d entered the Game, the number of people around her was generally restricted to a couple dozen. Plus, it was fun to think of how it worked as it zoomed along through the tunnels under the city. So, in contrast to Dave, who was largely unimpressed with the technology, she was enjoying herself immensely.

And she didn’t see any particular reason to stop enjoying herself when the lights flickered and went out. She was in the exact same situation; just now she was in that situation and it was dark. She was a bit concerned when the brakes screeched and the car came to a jerky stop, because she was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to happen. But it didn’t seem like a particularly terrible malfunction. They had probably just lost power or something. She and Dave weren’t traveling on a schedule. They could afford the delay.

Other people around her gasped and murmured, and a little child near the far end of the car screamed, but was quickly hushed by her chaperone. Jade shifted in her seat as the darkness filled itself up with whispers. She wondered if the people had taken it upon themselves to stimulate their other senses, now that sight was gone, or if she was just noticing it more now, since she couldn’t see. It was eerie. There was a rustling noise as someone wearing a skirt got up and went to the end, maybe to look ahead of them to see if there was anything to see.

Suddenly, Jade felt a hand grab her own. It startled her at first, but then she realized it was her right hand, and Dave was just to her right. Her first assumption was that he was using the darkness as an excuse to hold her hand without being caught. She was like eighty-seven percent sure he had a crush on her - unless she was thinking of telling him that she also had a crush on him, in which case she was only about twelve percent sure. But right now was one of the eighty-seven percent times, and it seemed perfectly reasonable to her that Dave would think to use this opportunity to do some completely innocent hand-holding. It wasn’t until she felt his grip tighten exponentially that she realized anything was wrong.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked, giving his hand a little squeeze. It was difficult, due to the fact that he was holding on tight enough to actually cause her pain.

“Nothin’,” he said.

Jade pulled his hand into her lap. “It’s not nothing,” she said. She found his hand with her free one and began to stroke it gently. It was a calming motion, one that had kept her relaxed through childhood accidents and night terrors. Maybe it would work on Dave now.

“It’s nothing,” he repeated, and she felt him try to loosen his grip and pull his hand away.

She tightened her own in response. “Oh no you don’t, mister. You grabbed my hand and tried to squeeze it off; you’re explaining yourself.”

His hand tightened and he didn’t respond for a moment. She suddenly heard a rush of breath; he’d evidently been holding it. “Every goddamn asshole in this car is whispering,” he said quietly. “It’s just - it’s irritating.”

Irritating? Jade couldn’t honestly say she _enjoyed_ listening to it, but she didn’t mind either. Dave usually didn’t mind sound, heck, he slept with his cell phone playing white noise, as she’d discovered a few months back by accident. Well, accident and Rose. “Is that all?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure? If you need help you can ask for it.”

“I’m fine,” he said sharply, and he pulled his hand out of hers.

Jade bit her lip, but didn’t try to take his hand again. She just clasped her own hands in her lap. The entire rest of the time the train was just sitting there she sat quietly, frowning and listening for any sound from Dave. She didn’t hear anything except slow, measured breathing. She hoped that would help calm him down, but she doubted it. Dave simply wasn’t a calm person, or the sort of person capable of calming himself down without some help or a lot of time.

He didn’t look at her when the lights came on and the train started up again.

* * *

Later, she asked Rose about it. The other girl told her that Dave sometimes still had nightmares about the Game. Jade wasn’t surprised by that. They all did, as far as she could tell. Children weren’t supposed to go through what they had. Rose took Jade’s hand and smiled at her a little wanly. “It took a long time before he admitted this to me. He would probably kill me if he knew I was telling you. A lot of his nightmares involve my - my grimdark fit.”

Jade tilted her head to the side in confusion. “He never even talked to you when you were like that, though,” she said. “John did, and I did just before, but Dave didn’t, did he?”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” Rose said. “Dave was awake on Derse for his entire life, but his shades protected him from the horrorterror whispers.” She paused and looked down.

“He thought the other people on the train sounded like horrorterrors?” Jade asked. “I mean, I guess I can see it. He seemed more scared than that, though. I mean, they creep him out, but I didn’t think he was actually scared of them.”

“If that was all, it wouldn’t have been so bad,” Rose said. “He only really heard them whisper once, at my urging. When he saw what happened to me under their influence, he got scared. That was why he refused to ever take his shades off while we were traveling through the Furthest Ring. He even slept and showered with them on. I told him I would help him if he needed it, but just like Dave, he had to deal with it himself. That’s one of the things he has nightmares about. What if it had been him who had gone grimdark, instead of me. He’s never told me much about those dreams, except what they’re about, and that only once. He was likely panicking because his shades weren’t blocking out the whispers in the dark. They always did in the Game.”

“But why does he sleep with white noise?” Jade asked. “That’s kind of like whispers.” In her mind, she was still in that subway car. If he had just told her she could have helped him. Covered his ears or talked to him to block out the whispering. Maybe if she hadn’t pressured him so hard he wouldn’t have pulled away and she could at least have held his hand.

And maybe that would have been best, she thought as Rose answered. Maybe that would have made him most comfortable and happiest with the situation. Maybe he didn’t need her to know about his problems.

“He can control it.”


	6. Other People's Pets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by [The Meet Cute #144](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/post/112942360218/144-the-meet-cute). I don't own Papa John's. They have hella pizza, though.

“What I want to know,” Dave said, “Is why you have a fucking tarantula.”

Jade tried not to laugh, understanding that Dave didn’t find the situation nearly as funny as she did. “It’s not mine,” she said, covering her mouth with one hand. “It’s Jake’s.”

“Shit, sorry.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm. “What I want to know is why _Jake_ has a fucking tarantula. Shit’s downright unreal. Why would you want to keep this beast around the house? Keep the insects at bay? Why doesn’t the fucker have a cage or a tank or some shit? Whose fucking brilliant idea was it to let the freak run free in your apartment? If we still resurrected I’d kill them. Hell, I might kill them anyway.”

His rambling wasn’t quite as metaphoric as usual, and it was disconcerting to see him lose his peculiar brand of cool-but-not-really. Of course, if Jade wasn’t used to bugs of unusual size herself, she could see why she might be thrown off by her ectofather’s pet. Especially given his current situation.

“Or what the fuck ever I guess. I don’t even care,” he finished. “Just get this fucking monster _off my head_.”

“I can’t,” Jade said, biting her lower lip to keep her giggles out. “I don’t know how to pick him up. Just hold still. Jake will be back in the next ten minutes, tops.”

“Ten minutes,” Dave said, his poker face a slightly odd shape. It would take someone who knew him well to tell he was fighting back the urge to flail his arms around and try to beat the spider off of him. “You want me to hold a poisonous beast on my head for ten minutes like some fucking circus performance where they balance balls on seals’ noses? Except instead of a seal it’s me, and instead of a ball it’s an eight-legged mutant abomination, and instead of my nose it’s -”

At that moment the spider shifted, apparently lost its grip, and slid down the loose bangs on the front of Dave’s forehead, stopping abruptly when it reached his signature sunglasses.

“- my fucking shades,” he finished, his voice just a little higher than it had been before.

“It’s okay!” Jade said. “He won’t hurt you. He’s a pet, and anyway, a tarantula’s fangs aren’t long enough to get through a human’s skin. You’ll be fine.”

Dave managed to turn the sarcasm back on in time to deliver a snarky response. “That would be really fucking reassuring, Harley, if there wasn’t a hairy tentacle hanging between my sweet shades and my sweet face. If my eyes don’t deceive me there’s a goddamn claw on the end of this thing. It’s like a horrorterror decided to have a baby with Lord English and then the fucking baby fucked Aranea Serket and she shat out this fucking nightmare.”

Jade decided to try for a different approach. “So the Knight of Time, who has stood up to demons and denizens and death, is defeated by a little spider.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “Come on, Dave. Unlike most of the things we met in the Game, he can’t actually hurt you. And trust me, he’s more scared of you than you are of him.”

“A little spider. That is exactly what this is, Jade. A little spider. Congratulations, you’ve just won the award for best fucking description of shit of the decade. The crowds go wild.” He dared to shift just the tiniest bit, enough to shift his arms into a crossed position. “Anyway, that’s pretty damn easy for you to say. You grew up on Hellmurder Island with your fucking -”

“Hey bro, do you want to grab a - Oh holy _fucking shit_!”

Jade turned her head to see the newcomer, and Dave, apparently forgetting the large spider perched half on his shades and half on his hair, followed suit. It panicked at the sudden movement, scrambled back up onto Dave’s head, and then crawled over it, dropped onto his shoulders, and started to descend his back. Dave couldn’t restrain himself this time, and he leapt up into a standing position, swatting at his back, which he couldn’t reach very well. The tarantula lost its grip and curled in on itself as it fell the few feet to the couch. It must not have been hurt because it immediately uncurled and crawled up the back of the couch and then over it, vanishing into the dark space between the couch and the wall. A moment after it vanished, three throwing stars and a bottle of orange Crush hit the wall above the back of the couch. Dave jumped over the coffee table and moved to the other side of the room, next to Jade.

Jade shook her head, trying to disguise her laughter for the sake of looking stern this time, rather than sympathetic. “That wasn’t necessary, Dirk! The tarantula is completely harmless and Jake’s pet.”

Dirk Strider might have been staring at her incredulously. It was hard to tell behind the shades. Before he could speak, Dave interrupted. “Okay but now it’s behind the couch and soaked with orange soda or some shit. You don’t know how to pick it up. It could be anywhere by the time Jake gets back. Fucking anywhere.”

“Don’t worry,” Jade said. “Jake is a hunter. He knows how to stalk his prey. The spider isn’t stupid either. He knows this is where he gets fed and won’t have to hunt for it, so he won’t leave.” She shrugged a little and started to walk toward the door, making sure to display an air of casualness for the boys’ benefit. “I really feel like pizza. Do either of you have a preference? I like Papa John’s, myself.” She walked out of the room and the two Striders backed out after her, watching the couch warily and exchanging glances, mutually wondering why they had such crazy friends. A pet tarantula. A fucking pet tarantula.


	7. Popcorn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely based off [The Meet Cute #142](http://meetcuteprompts.tumblr.com/post/112760530563/142-the-meet-cute).

Dave Strider regarded himself as a lot of things; certified badass, god of rapping and irony, former god of Time, smooth motherfucker, and all around awesome dude. He might also have regarded himself as a little bit in love with his best friend, Jade Harley, and maybe sometimes as just a little bit dumb as shit, albeit still cool. One thing he did not consider himself to be was clumsy. Being clumsy was for losers, which he certainly wasn’t. And anyway, as someone who had grown up strifing on the roof of a twelve-story apartment building, he was pretty sure if he was all that clumsy then he would no longer be alive. It was a long drop from the roof to the street below, and the street was usually full of rushing cars. So yeah, being clumsy had never really been an option for him.

Which was exactly why it made absolutely no fucking sense why Jade’s lap was full of popcorn. None whatsoever. It was pretty obvious he’d been holding the popcorn; he’d gone to the lobby of the theatre to pick it up while Jade held their seats. On the way back in, he’d gone to squeeze past her legs. At that point _something_ had happened, and the end result was that Jade had a lapful of popcorn and the tub in his hands was a lot emptier. Jade looked down at the lapful of popcorn and then back up at him ruefully. Fucking _ruefully_. The fuck was Dave even thinking about anything having to do with Jade as rueful for?

“Well shit,” she said.

“That’s my line,” Dave objected.

Jade shrugged. “Well, that’s less than half the popcorn left. You can have it if you want.”

Dave shook his head. “Nah. We can salvage most of this. Your pants are clean.” He crouched down in front of her and put the tub against her lower legs. “Stand up real slowly,” he said. “Most of it should fall into the tub.”

“There are people watching, Dave,” Jade chuckled, but she did as instructed. The popcorn started to slide down and she angled her legs carefully so that most of it went into the waiting tub.

Dave shook his head. “Don’t underestimate the seriousness of wasting popcorn, Jade. Not one fluffy, exploded grain of maize will be left behind if it can be helped.”

“I really don’t think popcorn is made of maize.”

“Oh, trust me, it is. It is so made of maize, barley, whatever the fuck else.”

“Barley isn’t even corn.”

Dave clicked his tongue as he straightened up. “Really? If that’s the case, then explain the word barleycorn to me. Why the fuck is barleycorn a word if barley isn’t corn?”

Jade rolled her eyes, sitting down again in her seat. She didn’t know the answer to the question, though she supposed she could Google it. That reminded her, she needed to turn her phone off. She pulled the device out of the back pocket of her jeans and silenced it, then went to slide it back in. Her hand came in contact with something oddly lumpy. She grabbed it and pulled it out. Just as she’d guessed. Popcorn. She flicked it into Dave’s tub.

Dave had sat down while she was messing with her phone and begun to munch on what popcorn was left; probably more than two thirds of what had originally been there, with the addition of what he’d got off her lap. He saw the piece of popcorn flying into his tub and looked up suspiciously. “Did you get that off the floor?”

“No,” Jade replied.

Dave glanced down into the tub and back up at Jade. “Don’t put shit off the floor in this tub. Do you know what gets onto theatre floors? People come here and barf, Jade. Drunk off their asses people come here and vomit all over the floor and seats and little kids wet their pants and -”

“Dave! Gross!” Jade exclaimed. “It’s not off the floor.” The fact that it was, in fact, off the seat was totally incidental and had nothing to do with anything, at least, as far as Dave was concerned. She was pretty sure one little piece of popcorn that had been in contact with the seat wasn’t going to kill him. She’d eaten worse things she’d found washed up on the shore of her island as a kid. “Have you silenced your phone?”

Dave pulled his phone out of his pocket and silenced it. Then he held out the popcorn tub to her. “Here,” he said. “It’s pretty good. Too much butter, but otherwise it isn’t bad.”

Jade took a couple of pieces, popped them into her mouth, and chewed carefully. “It could use a little more salt,” she said. “But you’re right! It isn’t bad at all.”

The movie screen suddenly lightened a bit, and then a grey to green gradient appeared, announcing that the previews were about to begin. Both kids fell silent and leaned back in their seats to watch.

Ten minutes later or so, Dave glanced down into the popcorn tub to gauge how much was left, and if he should go get another before the movie began. He was surprised to see quite a lot left - he’d guessed at only half that much. Surprised, but not disappointed, he went back to watching previews, but quickly became uninterested in the current one. It was for a TV show that looked stupid as shit. He found himself paying more attention to his popcorn tub, which was still emptying itself surprisingly slowly. As a preview for a new song by a hit artist came on, he suddenly realized exactly why that was.

“Yo, Jade,” he said. “You gonna eat any of this popcorn?”

“What?” Jade asked, startled to hear him talking to her. “Well, yeah!” She grabbed a few pieces and put them in her mouth right away.

That seemed a bit suspicious to Dave. He kept an eye on Jade for the next several previews, an easy task, since they were all repeats of earlier previews now. Jade didn’t reach for the popcorn tub again. He wondered what the deal was. After a little more watching, he decided to ask her about it.

“Does it really need more salt?” he said. “There’s some salt in the lobby, next to the pretzel stand. I could go add salt if you want.”

Jade shook her head. “It’s fine!” she said, and ate a piece.

Dave frowned a little. “You’ve barely touched it. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, really.”

“You’re sending me some downright electrically mixed signals here and I’m getting a little concerned,” Dave objected. “Electrically mixed as in they’ve been mixed with an electronic mixer. Is some shit going on I don’t know about?”

Jade turned to look at him, seeming surprised. She didn’t answer for a moment. “Nothing’s going on, Dave. I just don’t... really like popcorn.”

“What?” Dave raised a hand to rub his ear for emphasis. “Could you run that one by me again, because I’m pretty sure you just told me you don’t like popcorn? What the shit? Everybody likes popcorn.”

Jade shook her head. “I don’t like popcorn. I mean, it tastes fine. I like butter and salt together, really. It’s just that...” She trailed off, raising a hand to rub at her lip a little bit. After a moment of slightly awkward silence, she pulled back her upper lip in an expression just barely reminiscent of a snarl, and tapped her finger against her front teeth. “So much stuff gets stuck between my front teeth,” she said. “I know popcorn sticks in everybody’s teeth, but I think it might stick in mine more, since they’re a bit big.”

Dave blinked, though he wasn’t sure if he could see it behind his shades. “Oh,” he said. “Well, shit.” He glanced at the screen, which was showing a car ad, of all things. “If you don’t like it, then why the hell were you eating it?” he asked, confused.

“Well, you know, you paid for it,” Jade said quietly, shrugging. “And it was for both of us.”

After a hesitant moment, Dave finally spoke again. “You don’t have to eat anything you don’t like just because I paid for it. I’ll eat the fucking popcorn myself, and if I don’t finish it then I’ll save it and give it to your fucking dog.” He set the tub down on the floor and stood up. “As for you, well, you like pretzels, right?”

Jade instinctively leaned back in her seat to give him room to get past. “Oh man, don’t spend more money, Dave. I’m fine without, really.”

“The fuck? You want me to sit next to you for an entire movie and stuff my unbelievably attractive face all by myself? Fuck that shit. It’s my money. I’ll spend it on whatever the hell I want to spend it on. Do you like pretzels or not? If you don’t tell me then I’ll just keep buying shit until I find something you do like. Do you want that, Jade? Do you want me to miss the beginning of this fucking movie because I’m out in the lobby trying to guess if you’d prefer an order of onion fries or a blue raspberry slushie?”

Jade tucked her head down toward her chest, feeling her face heat up. Dave wasn’t exactly being quiet about this whole tirade. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I like pretzels. Just not... not parmesan pretzels.”

“Sweet,” Dave said, a lot quieter, and he turned and walked out of the theatre.

About seven minutes later he came back in with a plain warm pretzel and a packet of salt, in case she wanted to season it. He was glad it was dark enough that she probably couldn’t see his face getting pink as he handed them to her.

Unfortunately for him, or maybe not so unfortunately in the long run, his shades made it look a whole hell of a lot darker in the theatre than it actually was.

 


End file.
